By the way, John O'Connor, the author of the Emoluments Clause article I point to immediately below, reports:

I also should note that I wrote this article while a law student and shopped it around immediately after graduation. I know you have had posts on your site about the ability of law students to attract journal interest in their student-written works. It can be done (and because of the paucity of scholarship in this area, it's an article I get occasional inquiries about out of the blue).

So take heart, law students, and get those articles circulated. (Of course, it helps if they're original, well-reasoned, and well-written, as O'Connor's article is.)

I want to add a to Mr. O'Connor's statement. It's possible for students to publish law review articles, but I'd suggest following Mr. O'Connor path and holding off on submitting your work until after graduation. I've noticed a stigma against student works that disappears as soon as you graduate.

I submitted an article during law school which got accepted by one, and only one, lackluster journal. The journal ultimately failed to complete their editing work and I was given the option to pull. I withdrew and resubmitted virtually the same work to law reviews again, but this time shortly after graduation. The second time around I received over twenty offers and ultimately wound up with an elite journal, who did a lovely job of editing.

I shopped around two articles after graduation. It took me some time to place both of them in journals of various prestige levels. I think one's success depends in part on the obscurity/popularity of a particular topic. Both of my papers were on relatively obscure and/or novel, topics that did not really "fit" within many journals from the start so I expected slow progress inititally. Or, at least, that's what I keep telling myself. Secondly, timing is important. Applying off-cycle slows down response time and creates more hassle when you need to follow up to make sure someone looked at the article.

Not making law journal won't necessarily stop you, as long as you're a good writer. I had no law journal on my resume, and I got a few offers from higher specialty journals in my field and positive indications from peer-reviewing journals. Generalist journals generally passed, but since I was in the esoteric topic of international space law, I don't know how much each factor is to blame. It's more important to write a good article on an original topic than to have the right resume to get an offer, though I'm sure there are higher level law journals that won't be willing to look past the resume.

I'm assuming that those of us who didn't actually make law journal have no chance in this department...

Not true at all. I didn't do law review (thanks to my school not permitting transfer students to join law review) and I was able to get an article accepted by a journal just this year. I would agree with patent lawyer above that if you are a solid writer and can do something on an original (but probably not so esoteric) subject, you have at least a chance of getting published. I will say that it was necessary to send my article to 100+ reviews to get even one offer, so don't hesitate to send it to as many journals and reviews as you can.

Also I was advised by one of my professor's that writing an article in the area you intend to practice in is good for the resume. My article was not as it was adapted from a paper I wrote for a seminar, but I intend to test that advice out with my next article.

It's more important to write a good article on an original topic than to have the right resume to get an offer[...]

You would think was boggled out, but alas my mind is boggling again. Does this mean that when you submit a manuscript to a law review journal, you also must submit a resume? How on earth would the editors reasonably need to know your employment history in order to appraise the quality of your manuscript?

Does this mean that when you submit a manuscript to a law review journal, you also must submit a resume? How on earth would the editors reasonably need to know your employment history in order to appraise the quality of your manuscript?

I submitted my resume to most of the law reviews I submitted my article to. I'm sure your noteworthiness has something to do with the decision of whether or not to publish your article, but not having been on law review I can't say for sure. But I graduated near the top of my class from a lower tier law school and managed to get published, so the quality of the work matters as well. And even the most accomplished attorneys had to get published the first time, right?

I'm the first Anon from above who wrote about holding off until after you graduate. (It's about time to register, isn't it?)

Does this mean that when you submit a manuscript to a law review journal, you also must submit a resume? How on earth would the editors reasonably need to know your employment history in order to appraise the quality of your manuscript?

Not only do journals ask you to submit a resume, it's the most important part of an article submission -- as my story about waiting 'till graduation to submit should show. I even had one law review ask me, via snail mail, where I was starting in the fall after I submitted. It's the snail mail that makes the story particularly egregious to me.

Regardless, I think journals, even good journals, are still in the hunt for original work. Much of the work we see in law reviews are retread summary type articles from professors who couldn't think of anything worthwhile and are worried about being bumped off tenure. There's still a lot of room for original thought.